HOME & GARDEN

Biedinger, who has been studying available weather records, says it just seems that way lately.

``There was a period in the `70s when South Florida didn`t experience any freezing temperatures at all,`` Biedinger says. ``From the winter of 1971-72 to the winter of `76-`77, there were no temperatures below 35. So we had five years without any freeze at all. Then in January 1977, we had that extended period of cold, with snow and temperatures below 35.

``Since that time, every year we have had temperatures equal to or less than 35 degrees in the winter. Because of all those freezes, it seems like it is getting colder.``

South Florida`s climate, he explains, is cyclical. For five to seven years on an average, temperatures will be relatively mild, with no freezing or only light freezes. Then comes a cycle of colder weather, lasting about the same length of time.

``During the last five years, since 1981, there has been at least one freeze each winter to cause significant damage to agricultural interests,`` Biedinger says.

So it seems colder than normal. But that is balanced by warmer than normal temperatures during the 1970s.

``In the long run it balances out,`` he says.

So when is the next warm cycle going to start?

``That`s hard to tell,`` Biedinger says. ``It could start this year. We`ve been warmer than normal this fall. But all it takes is below-normal temperatures in January, and they will balance out the fall temperatures. It can swing into a negative bracket and be below normal for the whole season.``

Biedinger says South Florida weather records, which go back to 1943, show that for the three coldest months, December through February, the mean temperature usually is about 68 degrees. That mean temperature, measured over 10-year periods, went down a degree or so in the 1940s, `50s and `60s, then went back up in the 1970s. So far, the 1980s mean temperature have been just a bit below that of the 1970s.

The coldest three-month average -- 58 degrees -- was in 1958, and the warmest was in 1948, with 72.2 degrees, he says.

Any significant change in weather patterns cannot be detected for several centuries, Biedinger says, adding, ``and then none of us will be around, anyway.``